


D:BH Scrapyard

by stupiddragon



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Gen, Scraps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-07-06 17:52:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15891051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupiddragon/pseuds/stupiddragon
Summary: A collection of small scraps of writing for Detroit: Become Human. Includes bits cut from Happy Holidays, You Bastard, as well as different POVs.





	1. I don't like Babies

**Author's Note:**

> This bit would have occurred during Chapter 3 of Happy Holidays, You Bastard while Hank and Connor were at Capt. Fowler's Christmas party. Even though I thought it was really cute, I felt like it was too much padding and kind of unnecessary. But in case you wanted Connor holding a baby, it's right here!

Early in the evening, Officer Chris Miller's wife stopped by with their four-month-old baby. Damian immediately became the life of the party; everyone wanted to hold him. 

Especially Hank. 

The crowd cooing around the infant, giving unsolicited advice and asking too many questions of the parents, was quickly interrupted by rude shouting and shoves.

"Ey ey ey! Lemme through!" Hank demanded. "Come on, gimme the baby!" Rather than push back, the sea of party-goers parted for him. Connor sheepishly followed. He'd never been able to see a human baby up close before. 

“Come on, Hank! Don't hog him!” someone complained. A few laughs sounded through the group.

At first, Connor didn't quite see what was so cute about it. The thing was small and oddly proportioned. It had a large head with tiny hands and feet, bulbous eyes, and a pudgy body. But as Hank reached for the child and his mother reluctantly handed him over, he saw lights shining in the man's eyes.

"Man, Chris. What a beautiful kid you've got," Hank smiled, bouncing the bundle in his arms. 

“Thank you, Hank,” Chris beamed. 

Damian looked up at the strange man holding him in bewilderment, but didn't fuss or cry. The way his big brown eyes stared, glistening in wonder, reminded Connor of a puppy. A lopsided smile crawled onto his face. Knowing that this tiny thing was somehow going to grow into a full-fledged human, molded solely by the world around him rather than stepping off of an assembly line already knowing everything it needed, gave Connor a feeling he couldn't yet describe. 

Hank stared at the alien creature for a while with a smile glowing on his face. That kind of look on the Lieutenant was rare; Connor didn't think he'd ever seen it before.

After making faces and spouting gibberish at Damian for a few minutes while others chatted to the new parents, Hank’s smile slowly faded into a quiet, almost serene stare.

“Gah, I gotta… I gotta use the restroom. Connor, you take 'im.” Hank suddenly held out the baby to the android, who raised his hands as if to reject it. 

“I- I'm not so sure I should-” he stammered. Him? Hold a child? Weren't they supposed to be incredibly fragile? Did everyone here really trust him enough to hold a baby?

“It’s okay- take him!” Mrs. Miller insisted. She'd quickly accepted the feeling of having her hands free, and was in no hurry to tie them up again. “Connor, right? You’ve never held a baby before, have you? Go ahead, he only bites me.”

Some of Damian's admirers chuckled and murmured their encouragement. 

Feeling pressured, Connor cautiously held his arms out for Hank to lay Damian in. He was careful not to make any sudden movements while Hank posed the android’s arms and hands just right.

“Take care of that baby, Uncle Connor,” the lieutenant said with a clap on Connor’s shoulder as he turned to leave. Connor thought he heard a sniffle from him. “Be back in a minute.”

Suddenly Connor felt very lost. What was he supposed to do with this? Just… look at it? Entertain it? The android looked down at Damian curiously, the same way Damian looked up at him. The child seemed perfectly content.

“...Hi,” Connor smiled. The baby gave a gummy, open-mouthed smile back- or was it a yawn? Either way... it was cute, everyone around him agreed. 

Someone snapped a photo next to them, the flash lighting up the room. Connor looked- it was Chris, grinning like a fool. 

“Sorry, I just had to get a picture of this.” He leaned over to his wife to show her, and she cooed at how precious both Connor and her baby looked. The way she awed and pointed to Connor on the screen made him feel small, like she thought he needed taking care of the same way a child did. He wasn't sure that was any better than being outwardly discriminated against.

Just as Officer Miller was turning his phone around to show Connor, he felt squirming in his arms. Damian flailed his little hands, trying to rub at his eyes. Poor thing- the flash must have upset him. Or was it Connor himself? Was he holding him wrong? 

The baby started choking out tiny complaints, then half-sobs. Without a second thought, Connor offered him back to his mother.

“Sorry, Mrs. Miller,” he apologized. He must have done something. Infants were easily upset- maybe it was that he wasn't warm, or soft, or he didn't smell like a person…

“No, no, it's not your fault! Babies cry for no reason all the time, honey.” The young mother gently took the child away from Connor, holding him pressed against her chest and lovingly rocking him back and forth. Even this didn't seem to calm the child. "He must be tired. I should put him to bed."

Connor stepped back, his metal joints moving stiffly and processor telling him that this was his doing. While he guiltily fiddled with his quarter, he watched Chris give gentle kisses to his boy and his wife. Those who were still gathered around each hugged Mrs. Miller, gave their babbling goodbyes to Damian, and let the poor woman and her fussing baby out the door. 

"Bye, Connor! Nice meeting you!" Mrs. Miller waved as she left. He waved back meekly. 

"Goodnight, Mrs. Miller! Happy holidays!"

That was enough attention for now, Connor thought.


	2. Overload: Gavin's POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gavin fucked up. Really fucking hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ: 
> 
> This is an alternate POV for the events of chapter 8 of Happy Holidays, You Bastard. If you're reading through that fic and haven't read that chapter yet, please don't read this. 
> 
> If you have read that chapter, this is in no way meant to be a hint at redemption for Gavin. I was struggling to figure out what he'd do in this situation, so I typed out a short bit from his perspective to help myself. Enjoy!

_The fuck?_

Normally when you tase a guy, they fall, they scream, they squirm a lot. That was to be expected, but they'd be fine. That's what Connor did, for maybe like, five seconds?

And then everything started going to shit, really fucking fast. It lasted for maybe 5 minutes, the writhing and jerking and electrical shrieking, long past the end of the charge. Connor's body had twisted into positions Gavin didn't even know were possible, and every time it moved it had been with loud clicking and straining from its motors.

It had so shocked the Detective that he just stood and watched, mouth agape.

Then it had stopped moving completely, and the light on its head went out.

Gavin had killed a guy once. It wasn't on purpose- it was self defense- and it hadn't felt good, even though it was a known murderer. It felt awful, actually; the life of an armed and dangerous criminal, snuffed out before he’d even had his Miranda rights read. No punishment, no rotting in jail, no time to regret what he'd done and suffer for it, no real closure for the families of the victims. Gavin had been absolutely pissed at himself about it, though he’d gotten off without so much as a warning, of course. Sometimes these things happened.

This time was different. This was worse. It was Connor, his “coworker,” the android sent by Cyberlife to fuck up Gavin's career by being specifically engineered to put people like him out of work. It had done a wonderful job so far, closing cases at a faster rate than anyone in DPD history and draining the potential pool of jobs for other detectives like Gavin to work to a near trickle. How the fuck was he supposed to get anywhere when there was nowhere to go? No work to do?

But hey, Connor was a _deviant_ now, whatever the fuck that meant. Gavin had hoped that malfunctioning would knock down the android's usefulness a peg, but no. It could still solve cases like a motherfucker.

So Gavin tried to put it in its place- again, and again, and again- until the thing finally learned its lesson.

Only this time it looked like he may have gone too far.

Killing this android was _not_ worth his career, that's for sure. As much as he'd wanted to kill it in the past- and tried to, once, in the archive room- Gavin currently did not like the idea of Connor's bright blue blood being on his hands. Not in the least because he would technically be a felon for it, and even if he somehow got away with it he’d still have to live it down while looking at Hank Anderson’s ugly fucking face every day. Covering it up would be a bitch and a half, too. He and Connor were investigating this scene alone. He had no alibi.

“Fuck… fuckfuckfuck!!” Gavin hissed to himself, frantically turning the android over for some sign of life, some sort of reset button. This was not how he wanted to start his New Year.

“Shit…”

The android's face stared blankly upwards, eyes no longer the right colors- one looked more like the lense of a security camera through tinted glass, the other was all white like it had rolled back into its head. Its skin was patchy, parts of it rolled back to expose the white plastic underneath. The whole thing creeped Gavin the fuck out. Uncanny machines masquerading as humans… it had always made him shiver.

_Okay, okay, Gavin. You've gotta get this piece of shit back in working order so you can move on with your goddamn life, okay?_

Hell if he knew anything about robots, though. Gavin found himself okay with most technology, but androids? Fuck no.

_Wait, think about the wonders of technology, shithead. You have a phone for a reason._

Gavin pulled out his cell phone, quickly pulling up the browser (in incognito mode, of course) and searching for a way to fix this steaming pile of shit. He scrolled through pages and pages, video upon video. Half of them he wasn't sure really knew what they were doing. The rest seemed like answers to completely different problems.

By the time Gavin found something even remotely on the right track, he was most of the way through a cigarette and starting to feel the pounding fatigue behind his eyes.

Okay, so… open the stomach panel. _Gross_. Ground yourself, disconnect the main power circuit, then reconnect. It would disperse the electric build up or… something. Sounded simple enough, until he actually got down under the layers of clothing Connor was wearing and opened it up.

There were wires fucking _everywhere_. Black ones, white ones, blue ones, thick, thin, long, and short ones. And way more than any of the videos he'd watched. Fucking prototypes.

After squinting between the diagram he was looking at and Connor's innards for a full minute, Gavin thought he might have figured it out. This one medium-ish wire with a connector in the middle- that was the main power. He grabbed it and immediately flinched back at the electric shock that stung his fingers. He spat out a string of cusses and shook the tingling feeling from his fingers before getting back to work.

Gavin let the video play and attempted to follow along. Ground yourself by touching the metal inside the chassis, got it. Disconnect the wire with a slight twist- fuck, it zapped him again- and put it back together. Done. Reactivation should be automatic.

The blue tubes of thirium running up through Connor’s body began to flow again, and its components hummed back to life. Gavin stared at the blank LED on the android’s temple until it blinked to red. It reminded him of the three Xboxes he’d gone through as a little kid. Suddenly just crapped out on him, the pieces of shit. It didn’t make him feel very confident about being able to fix Connor.

Strange buzzing sounds sparked in Connor’s throat, but it didn’t seem like it was trying to talk. Its mouth wasn’t even moving. Its eyes would blink erratically, head jerking back and forth.

“Holy shit…” Gavin watched the thing struggle to reboot. It was horrifying, really. It looked possessed. “I didn’t think it would fuck you up that much.”

As expected, Connor didn’t respond. Its distant gaze was still stuck up at the ceiling, but the lense in its black, camera-like eye was twisting back and forth, trying to focus. The little red light on its head spun like mad, which Gavin took to be a good sign. Processing, right?

“You alive in there, tincan?”

No response. Connor’s fingers were twitching without purpose. Maybe it was too far gone to be saved. Maybe Gavin had really fucked up this time. He was going to lose his job, his entire fucking life, get sent to fucking prison… All because this damn thing didn’t know when to fucking stop.

But then the android did something. It _grimaced,_ like it was actually in pain. Like it actually felt how its limbs were bent in the wrong direction, or how Gavin was still holding on to the wires in its stomach, ready to pull the plug again if Connor was unsalvageable.

“Shit, did it work?” Gavin breathed to himself. He wasn’t religious, but if there was any time to pray to a God he felt like it would be now.

The detective didn’t expect much. A “where am I?” or a “what happened?” maybe, the typical amnesiatic things people said after they’d just been knocked out. But the thing fucking screamed at him- something so distorted and full of static that Gavin had no clue what just came out of the robot’s mouth.

Connor somehow managed to lift up its head and looked straight at Gavin with its creepy-ass eyes and that fake as fuck pain on its face. And that probably meant it had worked. Gavin’s life was officially saved.

Thank _fuck._


	3. Realization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a short drabble of Gavin's thoughts between chapters 13 and 14 of Happy Holidays, You Bastard. Please don't read if you haven't read through chapter 13!

The only thing worse than waking up in a hospital with a hole in your lung and a breathing tube stuffed down your throat was waking up in the hospital knowing the man— no… fucking _robot—_ who saved you. At least, for Gavin it was.

That night was a hazy blur of smoke and gunfire and frantic shouts. He'd gone rage mode on the thing that shot Tina, but the android had got the better of him. It'd shot him, and then apparently shoved him into the river. Gavin could barely remember that, but he had a vague memory of suffocating, freezing, sinking…

But he was alive, which meant someone had pulled him out. Tina had filled him in. She'd told him who'd dove into the Arctic temperatures to bring him to safety, almost shut down and froze up hims— _itself_ — in the process. Connor wasn't just a savior among androids now. Not just the poor little robot trying to play at being a real boy. He was a hero to humans now, too, back on the news for rescuing a dying cop at the potential cost of his own life, and the capture of their criminal.

Fuck. That meant he had to act like Connor had done something for him. He didn't look forward to anyone trying to extract some kind of heartfelt interview from him about how amazing it was that two races could come together like that and whatever other sappy bullshit the public wanted to hear.

Gavin still didn't wanna say it or hear it. He didn't wanna think about it. That he might have been wrong. That he might have a reason to feel… guilty.

Even somewhere deep in his drug-addled brain, he knew he'd fucked up. When the guy— _robot,_ fuck!— actually showed up in Gavin's hospital room, that point was only driven deeper. It stabbed into cracks in his resolve to hate the damn things and created painful fissures. He fought and flailed to plug them back up, but the words from Connor's mouth… the look on his… _its_ face… Fuck, Gavin didn't want to dissect what it meant that, even despite everything he'd done to Connor, Connor had saved him. Didn't want to unravel the twisted knot that knowing that tied in his stomach. Just wanted to be angry, and stay angry, and chalk it up to the laws of robotics again. _A robot shall not allow harm to come to a human through either action or inaction_. It was in their programming… right?

But no, he'd fucked up. Slowly, it started to sink in. He'd fucked up so hard and Tina had nearly shouted her way out if the room when he'd refused to realize it or appreciate his savior, and she didn't even know the half of it. And then that savior had shown his face, his twisted, hurt, puppy-eyed face that Gavin couldn't look at and see _nothing_ anymore. There was something there, and he'd refused to see it. Was still trying to refuse.

When Connor left the room, Gavin had nearly ripped out every wire and tube attached to him in his confused rage. He would have actually done it, if it didn't hurt so fucking much to move. He shook and swore and failed to will himself back into morphine-induced sleep, tried to numb himself by watching some mindless bullshit on the TV. Warped and twisted his thoughts and memories into conspiracy theories, reasons that no, Connor did not have feelings and no, Gavin shouldn't feel any appreciation for the plastic prick or guilt about his actions, but reality always sprang back from whatever mold he tried to shove it into.

Gavin covered his eyes and sobbed at the word he'd stopped Connor from saying, still believed that it couldn't be the _same_ , but knew that he'd done something fucking awful. Gavin wasn't a nice person. He was a terrible person, most people hated his guts, and he was fucking fine with that. He wasn't fine with what he was being silently accused of, but he couldn't say it hadn't happened.

It was going to be pretty fucking hard to live with himself after this, huh?

No way could he see Connor's stupid robot face and know that what he said and did was just a program and Gavin could say and do whatever he wanted back to the damn thing without consequence.

No way could he walk into that precinct again or carry that gun or flash that badge and _know_ that he was the good guy, temperament be damned.

The world had had already been flipped on its head, but now so had _his_.


End file.
